Stelios Tzellos, Ph.D., GlobalData’s Analyst covering Oncology and Haematology, states that Adcetris is the only molecular-targeted therapy currently approved and indicated for the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Tzellos says: “Adcetris currently accounts for 77.6% of the total market, and is predicted to make up 82.4% of sales by the end of the forecast period. The drug is expected to be approved for use in the treatment of newly diagnosed advanced-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients in 2018, which will massively increase the size of its target population pool.”

Projected launch of premium-priced pipeline agents will help drive sales

The projected launch of premium-priced pipeline agents, spearheaded by the anti-programmed cell death (PD)-1 therapies, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and Merck’s Keytruda, will also drive sales, but only to a limited extent. These drugs will address R/R Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of the disease with the highest level of unmet need.

Tzellos explains: “Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment is hailed as one of the success stories of oncology, and has a low overall level of unmet medical need.

“As it stands, costly new therapies already face considerable barriers in attempting to improve long-term remission rates, a barrier which is exacerbated by the relatively inexpensive cost of current standard-of-care therapies.”

The analyst adds that Adcetris faces the biggest challenge to gaining market share for the front-line treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, due to a prohibitively high cost of therapy. However, a significant unmet medical need persists in older patients, as well as for those patients who have R/R disease, which may encourage uptake.

“Premium-priced pipeline therapies that target the R/R Hodgkin’s lymphoma population will find it easier to penetrate the market, as Adcetris has already opened the door for expensive therapeutics in this setting,” Tzellos concludes.